10 Miles above Ground Level

Category Archives: Skitarii

I quit my job, got a new and better job, that job imploded as Indie studios are wont to do, so I got an even better job with a bigger and more stable company (one you’ve probably heard of!)

So now I’m on awesome money and getting my hobby on in a big way.

The biggest thing going on with me is that I got into Necromunda in a big way, I have a group of half a dozen friends who come around to my flat on a Wednesday night and play, each week, every week for the past two or three months.

I started with Escher, but quickly reverted to form and started writing my own rules. A complete ruleset for an Adeptus Mechanicus gang!

The guys and gals report that it’s neither overpowered nor unpleasant to play against, and with the more recent updates to the base-game, the bigger, nastier weapons I’ve added are actually quite tame.

The main thing is that I’m not fielding a single model that isn’t customised specifically for the games we’re running, so it’s been a bit of an adventure!

The first model I built was this guy, going by the name of Aleph-0, he’s a Praetorian Gun Servitor, armed with a Servo Arm and Heavy Bolter.

I built him using a Slaughterpriest as the base model, it took me a couple hours to build and a couple more to paint. I then immediately bought another slaughterpriest and pumped out a second one!

Then after a few weeks where I fielded Horus Heresy models to stand in for an Adept and Tech-thrall/gun-servitors, I finally built a model for my Adept.

Adept Kovarian is made using a Primaris Psyker and parts from the standard plastic Tech Priest, plus a little brass-etch and a few spare parts I had lying around.

In ruleset, he’s a fairly capable combatant, so far he’s consistently beaten the snot out of anyone who dared enter melee with him (power axes in necromunda are horribly dangerous!)

On one notable occasion he blew himself up with the plasma pistol though. so there’s that 😛

I’m also using a couple custom models for my Servo-Skulls, though no pictures of those specifically (see the last picture where I show the whole gang together for those!)

I followed Kovarian with a bit of a boondoggle project, A Cataphract battle automata, based off the old Rogue Trader robots in concept.

It’s built using a Primaris Aggressor as a base model, with the body of a Horus Heresy Servo-Automata I had lying around, plus some parts of Kataphron Breachers for the backpack.

All the weapons are magnetised so I can swap between loadouts, In game it usually wields the melta gun and a bolt-pistol, the fists also count as power-fists, meaning it’s a brutally dangerous close-ranged opponent.

I dispensed with the idea of a carapace weapon after deciding the model was too small to mount a Lightning Gun without looking silly.

The final shift towards using entirely custom models was to make Tech-Thrall equivelants.

I wrestled with the idea a lot before settling on the solution.

Electro Priests with Kataphron parts made a surprisingly effective combination! The guns were an interesting part to figure out, they’re actually the Kataphron’s Arc rifles without the giant capacitor block on the top. I figure they resemble the original Tech Thrall Las-locks quite well!

Just in the past couple days, I’ve been expanding my gang further with a Tunnel Stalker (Rust-stalker variant for necromunda, armed with dual auto-pistols and a sword)

And a third Praetorian, this one based on Guilliman for reasons of ribbing the many many ultramarines players I hang out with! I take a perverse pleasure in reducing Roboute Guilliman: Primarch of the Ultramarines, Lord of Macragge etc etc down to a mere weapons servitor..

All in all, it’s been a very very fun project. The gang has been reasonably competitive without being overpowered and I’ve gotten a lot of good feedback on the models!

The Big Wheel of Warhammer is spinning again, I’ve got plans for Seraphon and an Aquatic Ork army for 40k in the works.

By which I mean, I’ve spent three months moving into my new flat, enjoying christmas and then looking for the cable to plug my camera into my computer.

So I have a bunch of stuff to show off!

The New Flat

I have a new Games Room and hobby desk on which to play and work at home rather than relying on a 30 minute trek into town to do anything. It’s worked wonders on my hobby!

Once the table was set up, I immediately invited some friends to have a game with me, we wound up having a three-sided 3000 points apiece battle. Orks vs Chaos Marines vs 30k Mechanicum.
A grand success with chinese takeaway and beer! I was able to snap a fair few photos over that battle but very few were clear shots of the table without blur.. ah well.
Behold the battlefield!

Warlord Titan

I bought my Warlord Titan!
Previously I only had one gun and the head, the rest of the parts arrived shortly after christmas and I was delighted to be able to take some pictures…

“What have I gotten myself into?”

That’s a LOT of parts..

I’m going to get this thing framed…the reaver’s certificate too.

Since these pictures were taken, I’ve partially assembled the torso of the titan

To my minor annoyance, it turns out I hadn’t quite been thorough enough cleaning the parts, so I’ll be going back over these parts to make doubly sure.
That’s the trouble with such large components…
For the curious, the unpainted circle on the side of the chassis is where I had placed another model (with its round base) on the part during spraying.
That whole area is going to be under the shoulder anyway so I figured it didn’t much matter.

Amazingly, the carapace is actually large enough to drive a tank over…

In any case, now I’ve got my camera and photobooth set up again, I’ll be updating my blog a LOT more frequently. and with that, I’ll have a lot more impetus to work on the warlord. I’m thinking I’ll dedicate saturday entirely to it.
I won’t leave the house that day. Hoping to get a lot done!

Dark Mechanicum Acolytes

I had a LOT of fun with these, I’ve been slowly building a collection of Daemon Engines for most of the time I’ve had this blog, so long-time readers know exactly what I’m talking about…
I figured it was time I made some infantry to go with the monsters.
But not just any old cultists or marines would do, they’d have to be something dark, gribbly and John Blanchian.
So I turned to my bits box and some spare dark eldar parts…
I hope you’ll agree that the results speak for themselves!

I’m still painting the back three, but the two with their bases done are complete.

I’ve been working on tentative rules, but the basic idea is that these are a Retinue or can take the role of squad-leader for cultists and traitor-skitarii.
They’re highly upgradeable but basically not designed to stand alone. you -can- give them all plasma guns and field them as mobile special weapons teams, or attach them to the cultists as a major bonus to leadership and other bonuses depending on wargear.

Their secondary role is to be used alongside a Heretek Magos to beef out his power and provide a bodyguard.
To make them, I primarily used Dark Eldar Wracks and Skitarii Ruststalkers as parts-sources. some bits and bobs (mostly servo-skulls and the plasma gun) from other kits too.

Next up, the Magos. I’ve picked up the Everchosen Gaunt Summoner, I think I can get some interesting results by adding DEldar and Admech parts to him…

30k Mechanicum

Running alongside everything else, I went to the Horus Heresy Tournament in Nottingham a couple weeks ago. I had a fantastic time (even though I was the bottom of the league) and I’m definitely going again in june/july

However in preparation, I spent some time prepping my army, so now every single model is fully based and painted.
I built a Macrocarid Explorator using the Land Raider Proteus kit, since my existing Mechanicum Land Raider was no longer part of the army list. Happy to report that it was only destroyed once in the five games I played at the tournament.

I also built and painted a Knight Atrapos.

I’ll post pictures of both the Macrocarid and Atrapos in my next post (probably tomorrow evening)

General lessons learned in the tournament; Mechanicum are okay at melee, but benefit from using the right units for it.
I was fielding my Magos as a Malagra (melee assault specialist) with a unit of Ferrox type Thallaxii. The Rage special rule was meant to make them a lot more lethal, but in practice I never really got to take advantage of it properly.
I also learned that I really REALLY need more tech thralls and transports.
So at some stage I’ll be buying some Triaros transports.

My feeling is that the Ferrox was largely wasted, so I’ve purchased some Scyllax guardian automata to fill the role. uncertain how they’ll mesh with my army since I normally field my Magos with a jetpack. perhaps they’ll play nice with her if I remove the jetpack and replace it with something else…

Solar Auxilia

I actually got a game against the solar auxilia while I was at the tournament, my first proper encounter with them. My previous meetings were when they were attached as allies to a Sons of Horus army so I never really got a sense for what they were good at.

As I’m sure my dear readers are aware, I’m aiming to build a Solar Auxilia army and currently have a command squad/legate-commander, Storm Section and an Arvus Lighter built for them.
After the tournament was over, I bought Book 4 and a pack of Ogryn Charonites to really kick off my army.

I adore the charonite models. They go together with a nice snug fit on all parts and no messing around with bending anything, even those pipes are the right shape to fit as long as you use the correct numbered parts!
They’re also big, a Lot bigger than you might think.
Guard players may be mislead about their size by comparing them to 40k era ogryns.
These are not your regular ogryn in a space suit, they’ve been gene-bulked and given augmetic surgeries. they’re a LOT scarier. They are to 40k ogryns what 40k ogryns are to guardsmen.

I mean wow, they make regular ogryns look puny!

This Ogryn isn’t finished yet, still quite a bit to do on him, but you get the idea of how I’m painting them. The vibrant orange is very striking, I’m having a great time with this army so far!
Hoping when I get to the infantry tercios I won’t get so bogged down I lose the sense of fun with them.

Imperial Assassins

Some may recall my previous posts in which I showed off my Culexus and Callidus assassins?
Well, the new models showed up and I decided I liked the look of the eversor and vindicaire more than my own rough attempts. So I went ahead and bought them.

Nothing much to say, I’ve painted them with the same style as my previous models and I’m very pleased with the results.
Special mention goes to the vindicaire’s glowing eyes and blended camoleoline suit.

Some may be aware that I’ve long owned the seperate titan princeps and moderatii box, as well as the Titan Tech Priest. they’re technically intended for the Reaver, but since moderatii are identical in both..I figured I’d paint them appropriately for the Warlord.
The Warlord’s head comes with an extra Princeps-Alpha for tabletop use, so I figured I’d make a Thing out of painting the entire crew.

Behold!

For the Princeps, I’ve added a Cognis-Signum badge to his base, GW went through a bout of providing them for free in every mail order when the Admech and skitarii came out, so I naturally have quite a few!
I’m still waiting on word about my new flat, so I’m unwilling to buy the rest of the titan until that’s all sorted in (hopefully) a few weeks. Plenty of time to handle my other projects!
To-Wit, my entire WIP-box, containing as it does four entire squads of various types of Admech and half a squad of Solar Auxilia…

I and a friend travelled down to Nottingham to see Warhammer World for the first time.

I’m totally blown away by the experience, it was utterly fantastic.
We did everything but play a game while we were there, I’ve literally got the T-shirt (the burgundy Mechanicum logo one)
Brought back a bunch of “souvenirs” too.
Not started working on them yet but in the bags are:
A pack of Thallaxii with a Photon Thruster to round out my existing squads
A pack of Myrmidon Secutors to expand my existing squad
And a pack of a Solar Auxilia Veletaris Storm Section. I love the look of them and decided I really wanted a squad of them!

They’ll have to wait though, because I’m working my way through a pack of Vorax Battle Automata and Kataphron Destroyers.

I have one of each done!

Amazingly, I was able to paint the Kataphron in only 25 minutes! This bodes well for getting a whole unit of them together for my Cult Mechanicus forces…

I was also able to get around to painting my Hellbrute conversion shown in my last post.
Thoroughly pleased with the results

With all the stuff on my plate, you’d think that’d be enough, but after seeing the Warlords that they have at Warhammer World, I’ve also ordered the Head of one to start me off. it should be here Today! (omg, totally forgot it was coming in all the chaos. now I’m gonna have to reorganise my plans for the weekend again :P)
I’m expecting to get the keys to my new flat in the next week or two as well as the Manchester public transport being heavily disrupted for a few months. so my hobby may be likewise disrupted. I do my best work in the store where there’s fewer distractions…

Ah well. it should all work out.
But in any case, after I’m settled into my new place, I intend to order the rest of the Warlord, I’m hoping the specific weapons I want to fit it with will have been released by the time I’m ready for them, I’m planning on the Apocalypse Missiles (confirmed as the next release for it), a volcano cannon, and the Saturnine Claw. (A hellstorm template attack with a powerful melee that re-rolls armour penetration too! picture a blowtorch for a fist, the size of a tank.)

Browsing the internet (as one does) for ideas, I ran across some particularly inspiring examples…After a few moments I realised I had nearly all the parts needed in my bitz collection and immediately picked up the last few things needed and cranked out this conversion in two evenings, painted it in an afternoon.

The last of the Cult Mechanicus releases came out this weekend and I spent a good deal of time making and painting stuff.
To-wit, I finished my Kastellan robots and their Data-smith, I finally(!) got around to finishing the Onager Dunecrawler. somehow after all that conversion with the Dark Admech stuff I didn’t actually finish painting either of the two I bought for my army…still got the other one to finish assembling but this one’s done

And since we had the fantastic release of the plastic Tech-Priest Dominus kit, I had to do that this weekend 🙂

I’m quite happy with how everything’s turning out.

I’ve acquired the special editions to both Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus codices, serial numbers 32 and 10 respectively 🙂

Painting-wise, I’ve shifted the colours for my Admech. anything new I do will be in blue rather than the red I’ve historically been using. my Tech Guard and 30k admech are in red, the skitarii and cult mechanicum will be mostly blues.
I’ll continue to tie in with red parts here and there, but I want to differentiate my army from the other admech forces out there. with the admech going mainstream (as opposed to the preserve of conversions and theme armies) there’s a lot of people making them now and just being red with white cogs won’t be unusual anymore…
I have my conceits, I like to be different. There are no blue Admech forces in either of the codexes.

Photospam!

On other news.

Horus Heresy 5: Tempest arrived, I took a good look at the rules for the Warlord
Oh boy XD

For slightly under 3000 points, you get a warmachine that has 30 hullpoints and 6 void shields.

New Titan rules say that the reaver and warlord (and presumably Imperator) can only be hit in melee on a 6 unless you’re a superheavy walker or a gargantuan creature..in which case you hit on a 5.
This represents the fact that there are very few fragile systems at ankle-level and nearly everything there is entirely made out of armor.

No more terminators with thunder-hammers walking up and beating in the titan’s ankles.

The warlord itself is AV15 on front and sides, 14 on the back.
making it utterly immune to anything short of a lascannon unless you flank it, in which case you need a melta gun to do anything.
And if you flank it, you still have to face its tertiary weapon systems. comprising a pair of twin-linked lascannon emplacements at the back, and twin linked mauler bolt-cannons at the front.
Because the giant guns on the arms and carapace are worthless against close-in targets.

Interestingly, the carapace weapons come in pairs. you can’t field it with mixed carapace armaments. no giving it a vortex missile and a laser blaster, it’s two missiles or two laser blasters.

There’s actually a pretty huge array of possible weapons, I’m hoping they don’t leave the options fallow on the store for too long since I have specific ideas about what I want to do with it!
Fortunately, my reaver has sold me entirely on the idea of two apocalypse missile launchers, which I know for certain will be among the weapons on release.